


Between Heaven and Hell

by TwistedViolets



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Basically A Split Personality AU, Flashbacks, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Vanya Hargreeves-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-04 23:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20479589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistedViolets/pseuds/TwistedViolets
Summary: Vanya is like a two sided coin, spinning indefinitely on its axis. One of her sides is sweet, kind hearted, and always thinks the best of everything. The other side however is cold hearted, ruthless, and believes the world to be its enemy.Her soft side has taken precedence for now, only with the help of medication, but her father once said that he was worried about her coin stopping its spin, and choosing to fall on one side.She wonders if it’s up to fate-which side it lands on or if she has the power to decide.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was in the mood for Vanya fluff- which this is not but what can you do. I’ve wanted to play around with this idea for awhile.
> 
> This fic will mainly contain Reginald being a hardass and her siblings being supportive idiots.
> 
> Anything written between ‘’ is her split personality speaking.

Vanya sips on her chocolate milkshake, rebels in its sweet taste, and listens to the calm diner music playing as her father scribbles in his journal. He's writing his thoughts, and observations about something, but she isn't interested in knowing what.

They aren't supposed to pry.

Moonlight pours in the diner, providing erie lighting that would give her the heebie-jeebies if she was alone but she isn't so it just provides a nice beautiful blue tint to everything. The television has the news channel on, reporting about something in Japan, she isn't listening, can't listen when so many people are staring at them and whispering amongst themselves.

It must be amazing she supposes, to see The Monocle in the flesh. He's just her father though, and she could never really understand their fascination with him. 

Sometimes she hears them refer to him as some sort of helicopter parent but she isn't quite sure what they mean. She asked her mother once who had told her it just meant he was overbearing, that he always had to have a say in his children's life. Her mother had described it as a good thing like he's doing it to look out for them, but she isn't so sure that's true.

Those people are saying it like an insult, not a compliment.

The booth seats are comfortable, soft, and squishy. She kicks her feet since they don't touch the ground, slowly, and methodically as she ignores the glances, the whispers, and the weird vibes.

Her eyes catch on a mirror, one above the table that reflects her on to it. She watches her self drinking her milkshake, watches her father's hand making neat words, and then she sees another her.

The other her, one who appears to sit beside her in the mirror, but has no physical appearance outside of its confines. She watches as the other her turns her attention to the mirror too, locking her identical eyes with her.

'They adore him,' it whispers, this other her. 'They think you don't deserve his respect,' it's voice, her voice, tells her these terrible things. She closes her eyes and counts to ten, just like her father told her to do.

She opens her eyes, her heart racing, and it's gone. The other her has vanished.

"The Umbrella Academy-" it catches her attention, those first words muttered by the news anchor, "is currently being held hostage." She stops sipping her milkshake, her stomach immediately twisting itself in knots.

Her father glances up and frowns.

The news flashes to her siblings who displayed in front of a local bank tied up and forced on their knees, Allison's mouth taped over, Diego's hands behind his back and a knife at his throat, Luther bound by some sort of metal cuffs, Klaus with a gun pointed to his head. Five stands by as the only person without a restrain on, she can only assume that he isn't doing anything because of the knife at Diego's throat, or the gun at Klaus's head.

Ben is missing.

Her heart crumples in her chest, and her milkshake makes squeaky noises of protest as she squeezes it. She's nervous, seeing them like this, so vulnerable, and... in danger. Her father leans back while crossing his hands over his chest. "What a disgraceful appearance," he mutters, and she just stares at him, hard, but his complete insensitive response to the situation stays the same. "I leave them alone for a mere moment and they get encumbered by such idiotic circumstances." He says, and she sucks on her milkshake, it's chocolate flavor now leaving a sour taste in her mouth.

It tastes less like the reward it was supposed to be and more like a punishment. Maybe it should be one, a punishment, because it's all her fault she's here, it's all her fault her siblings are there.

Her stomach grows little butterflies and they flicker their wings repeatedly inside of her.

"We want two million dollars," a voice booms from the television, and she turns her attention back to it to see the bad guy's leader. A man dressed in all black with a mask on his face to conceal his identity. "Or else we will kill each and every one of these brats."

She turns back to her father, a frown on his face, although she isn't sure what from. The idea that he has to give up money? The idea that his children are being disgraceful? Or is it something else?

He doesn't say, just contemplates something in his mind before shutting his journal and standing. 

"Let us go Number Seven, we've got places to be."

She scoots out of the booth and follows behind him without a question in her mind. Sipping the last of her milkshake before throwing it in the trash.

————————————————————

They arrive at the bank, getting out of a limousine only to be blinded by flashes of light. Even at times like this the paparazzi takes pictures, her father ignores them, used to the spotlight, but she isn't.

She watches his shoes, his polished, clean shoes, and follows behind him. Eventually bumping into him when he stops and she doesn't realize it, due to the yelling, and bright lights.

She looks up, sees police cars surrounding the bank and her father assessing the situation. The head of the police force, the police chief, William, if she remembers correctly walks up to him.

"Hargreaves we've been waiting for you." William lights a cigarette and starts to walk expecting her father to follow which he does meaning she does too. At least she stays in his personal bubble because she has no interest in being alone in the limelight or mingling with strangers.

She looks at her siblings, looks at the fear plastered on their faces, even Five looks like he's afraid.

'They've become good actors haven't they?' It asks her, and she doesn't answer. 'They are putting on this sweet little show for you,' it coos to her, and chills cover her body.

"Be quiet," she mumbles lowly, and stills for a moment, waiting to make sure her father didn't hear her.

He didn't.

'You're so adorable Vanya,' it sweetly whispers in her ears, making her feel claustrophobic. 'Don't you see how Five is looking at you? Begging you to help him...to help them.'

Five is looking at her, his gaze burning holes into her skin. He opens his mouth and says something to her.

"Now." He said, blinking at her a few times, giving her a signal. She isn't ready, she's not ready for this. She shakes her head but Five just mouths the word again.

'He's serious you know,' it said, and she caught its reflection off a police car's tinted window. Her other self walking up to her, pressing a hand along hers, and her mouth against her ear. 'Let me take control,' her palm is cold, almost as if she's really being touched, and she pulls her hand away.

"Shut up." She mumbles louder, afraid that her other self will decide that it's not happy in the back seat. She knows it's just itching to drive, to take control, but she refuses to let it.

Her father stops, mid-conversation to look at her, and she just smiles and tries her best to feign innocence.

"Stay here," Her father instructs and she nods, watches as he walks between two police cars and up a few steps. The kidnappers' leader, or maybe just negotiator walks forward and opens his coat flashing something.

A bomb strapped across his chest.

Her father stops dead in his tracts.

"We want two million dollars." The man states in a deep, serious voice, he flashes his hand to reveal a bomb trigger. "We are willing to take out everyone here if you don't comply."

Her father takes another step, something gleams in his eyes. "It's imperative that you don't hurt them," Her father said, loud, his voice almost seemed to echo. 

The man narrowed his eyes.

There's movement behind the man, movement he doesn't see, but she does. Diego pushing against the ropes, Allison swallows drool beginning to roll down her chin, and Luther raises his cuffed wrists.

"All we need is the money and you can have them back," the man says, and her father takes a final step closer.

"I wasn't speaking to you." A light flashes blue, Five rips the bomb trigger out of the man's hand. Luther slams the cuffs off of the bank stairs and they shatter before he knocks over the man holding a knife to Diego's throat, Diego easily escapes the ropes to throw a knife at the man holding a gun at Klaus's head, and the tape on Allison's mouth slips off. 

A fight ensues.

Her father turns around, an unsatisfied look plastered on his features as he comes back. "How ridiculous," he says, taking his sweet time walking while the definition of chaos is happening behind him. Some part of her thinks this scene looks beautiful, and she wishes she could have taken a picture of it.

"I shouldn't be required to spoon-feed them at this point," he glares back at her siblings, stares for a good minute before he looks back shaking his head. "They have accomplished nothing except a new record for the worst acting in human history." He dusts off his suit as he reaches the last step.

He knows, knows that this is one big embarrassing attempt at something pitiful.

'Someday they are going to hate you, ordinary little Vanya who never did a thing for them.' The voice said and she clenches her eyes shut, pushes her fingers into her ears and counts.

The voice mumbles things to her.

She keeps counting, doesn't stop until a hand is pressed on her shoulder and the voice becomes quiet. "Seven?" Her father said, almost sounded concerned, but she knows he's more worried about his public appearance than anything.

She blinks at him and gives a sad, sad smile.

"I'm fine." She lies, lies to make him feel better because she's sure she wouldn't be able to explain that her other self is displeased at the moment.

She isn't extraordinary, never had power, nor had any real smarts. All she has is her heart, which she treasures, but her other self, the one who wishes she had more control hates it.

Her other self is extraordinary, at least she's heard, but she has never seen it herself, obviously. But she knows it's destructive, and she has no interest in entertaining any of its unhealthy thoughts.

It's cruel, she's always believed it to be. The mere fact that some god cursed her to live with such duality. An ordinary pure soul and an extraordinary darken soul trying to live in the same body. A shame, Pogo once told her, because if both herselfs had been born as one being she would be perfect.

Her father had only offered training to her a few times before deeming her too unstable. 

She would blackout for days, wake up doing something weird or nothing at all and have no idea about any of the events that took place while she slept inside her mind. She didn't mind the sleeping, it was actually a peaceful experience. Even the memory lapses weren't bothering her until she realized that her other self was a monster, is still a monster.

She remembers a time that she had woken up covered in a wet substance, the metallic smell of blood filling her, and then she realized, opened her eyes only to see that she was on top of Klaus and she had sliced open his stomach.

A small slice, nothing that couldn't be stitched, but she cried so hard, so much harder than Klaus was crying. Because her heart was on fire, because she hurt her brother, because she couldn't even remember doing it. It all hurt so much, and Klaus's look of pure betrayal hurt so much more.

Her mother had to have Diego help take Klaus to the infirmary, they had to help him walk, but her mother promised that he'd be okay. Her father forbids her from ever sparring with them, not even play fighting is allowed now.

There were other events sure, like the one time she caused a small upheaval of the ground in their backyard or the few times that she acted out and received scoldings from her father. Those things were little though, things she didn't care about until that event, when she cut up Klaus's stomach, with seemly nothing but her will. 

She looked at his eyes and saw the fear within them. He looked at her like she was a monster. A bloodthirsty, red-eyed, pointy fanged nightmare. She hates that look, hates how each time she remembers it she's paralyzed with pain.

She doesn't even know what they were fighting about, Klaus never told her. Soon after that, her father gave her medication, little white pills to numb her. The medication does exactly what it's supposed to, it has significantly weakened her other side, just as her father predicted it would. It's been almost three months since the last time she slept inside her mind, inside that dark warm place where she just seems to float until she's jerked back into reality.

She sighs, her father's hand falling off her arm, and all she wants to do is hug her siblings.

"After they are subdued we will acquire Six's location." Her father said, and she nods even though she already knows where he is.

A warehouse only two streets over, at least, that's where Five predicated that these low-class criminals would hide him. Her siblings wanted this. The grand plan to let her shine, to let her show off her other self, but she didn't want this.

She didn't want this three days ago when they proposed it, and she still doesn't want this now but they selfishly pushed it on her.

————————————————————

Her father is giving a speech at the place she affectionately considered home, her siblings not so much. He had realized at the start what they had done, he had only humored them. Their huge prank, a joke, a hoax, whatever they wanted to call it.

She sits on the stairs, her father thinks more highly of her than to stoop to their low level. She doesn't correct him, she just sits there and acts like she had nothing to do with that big mess.

"You should all be ashamed." He clicks his cane off the floor, looking them all over. They look down, for once they probably feel the shame that he wants them to. She was supposed to do something extraordinary, but she didn't.

They just embarrassed themselves.

It's her fault, too, but she tried to tell them before that she doesn't have any of these mystical powers like they do. Her other self hordes all of that power for herself and never offers her any.

She doesn't want it anyway, uninterested in its destructive embrace. The very embrace that her father hated, downright loathed it. If he hates it then she knows she's right to be afraid of it.

Her father gets done with his speech, but he isn't done with them. He leads them all away, to the back door she realizes as she stands and follows a good healthy ten feet behind. He opens the door, gestures for them to go out, and they do.

One by one they go outside, and then he shuts the door, locks it with an audible click. He sighs and walks past her, clearly done with his unruly children.

She looks out the door's window, peers at her siblings who sit in the dirt, accepting their fate, solitary, as her father refers to it. Although the name only suits it when there's only one person being punished. He is going to make them sleep out there.

Her hand hovers on the door handle, she can unlock it, she can let them in. Her hand drops, she knows it isn't her place.

If they really wanted to come inside they could but they won't. It's the principle of the matter that keeps them out there.

She turns around and heads to bed hoping that she wakes up to her sibling's incisive chattering and their annoyingly loud footsteps. It'll be weird, sleeping without them so near.

She hopes they aren't mad at her, they don't have any right to be when they made all those plans on their own. She said she didn't want to, but they just didn't listen.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole chapter is a flashback- just so you’re aware. This is the first official one I’ve written <3

Vanya played alone until she was seven years old. She hadn't had any inkling to a power, nothing about her was extraordinary. According to her father, she was utterly useless.

A broken soldier, a waste of space, and of course a waste of his money.

She cried herself to sleep often, upset knowing that she was the only one that never got a power. She kept up hope though that maybe she would, maybe someday she'd wake up and have one.

If her fantasy had somehow come true, she would be allowed to play with her siblings and more than anything in the world she wanted that.

She didn't want to be alone anymore.

Sitting in her room, talking to a voice in her head, one that sounded eerily like her but wasn't something she controlled. The voice sometimes told her to do things, which she did, stupidly, and her father told her she couldn't blame her imaginary friends when he caught her red-handed.

It made her sad, she had to make up her own friends because her father had prevented her from having a family.

At least she was upset, sulking in the living room, her head on her knees, and her eyes tearing up when he came to her. She had popped her head upright, leaned her back up and proper like he expected while she waited for him to tell her to stop being a child.

He didn't, instead, he clicked his cane once off the floor, looked at her deeply before speaking.

"Number Seven, I would like to explore your mind," he said as his eyes focused on her face, making her tense up from the heat behind the gaze.

It only took her a moment, a mere second of thought to realize what he had said. He wants to explore her mind, he wants to interact with her.

It makes her happy, so happy because she had condemned herself to a lifetime of loneliness but her father wants to do something with her.

Her tears dried up, as she nods, standing up, and practically glowing. She started to bounce on the balls of her feet, smiling like he was about to feed her a contraband item such as candy. 

He looked at her, with great displeasure at her response, but nonetheless didn't scold her for being so childish.

It was better for her to be excited than scared.

"Let us go Seven, we've haven't got all day," he said and she followed behind like a puppy.

————————————————————

He sat her in a room, underneath the house, with medical lights on the ceiling and all of its walls covered with a black sheet except one which housed a full wall length mirror. Her father gestures for her to sit in front of it and she does, her heartbeat picking up as she starts to understand this.

The fact that he's training her. No, he probably isn't considering this training, but even so, it's everything she's ever wanted. To be trained, to be examined, to be told that she still has a chance to be extraordinary.

He takes out a journal and begins to write as she stares into the mirror, her eyes focusing on herself. For a moment nothing happens, she wonders if she should ask her father what she's supposed to be doing until she sees it.

Her mirror image smiles.

She feels her heart drop, she didn't smile, only it is. 

Her mirror image tilts her head at her.

She furrows her eyebrows in conclusion.

'My name is Seven,' it said to her, In a voice that she knows, recognizes it immediately as her imaginary friend, the one who had a habit of getting her in trouble. It was smiling as if it was trying to be welcoming.

"I know," she said back, because this person in the mirror is her, nothing but a projection of her mind. She feels like, at one point she had known this girl staring at her as if maybe she had truly been her friend.

It shakes its head.

'I am no imagery friend,' it tells her, her smile turning into a tight-lipped frown. 'I am you,' the voice trails off, echoing in her ears.

Yes, she knows, this voice is hers, this girl has her body, it must be her.

'Can you help me?' Her mirror image gets on her knees, crawls toward the mirror, and tears prick her eyes. 'Please let me out,' she starts to sob, her eyes now releasing tears as if she had held them in for years.

"How?" She asks her mirror image, her heart aching, telling her to help.

'Just put your hands on mine,' it said as it put its hands against the glass, it's eye's glasses over with tears.

She crawls slowly towards the mirror, the floor cold and hard beneath her. Her father's writing is the only sound she hears other than her own heart beating. She raises her hands, they hover over the mirror for a moment, wondering if she should really do this.

She presses them on its hands, the glass is cold to the touch, but as her mirror image starts to grin it becomes hot. It starts to burn, but she can't rip her hands away, her mirror image starts to glow blue as she slowly fazes out of the mirror and into reality.

It shoves its lips on hers, a burning sensation travels from her lips to her brain, as if this thing has burrowed inside, rewiring her brain like a parasite. Black dots cloud her vision, the searing pain rips down her body before her father pulls her back.

A shot is embedded in her wrist before she even knows he has it.

The red liquid inside splashes around as it's injected in her veins. The black dots consume her and she's stuck floating in space.

She can't feel anything, nothing at all, and for a moment she wonders if she's dead.

'Thank you,' it's voice echos, sounding like it's coming from everywhere at once, far away, right beside her ears, everywhere.

She closes her eyes.

When she awakes, she's in the back yard. Standing still, rain pouring down her drenched body, her clothes clinging uncomfortably to her form whilst a little circle of the ground around her has been unnaturally lifted, and some floating pieces of rock drop in front of her.

She looks around, confused, scared, and so cold.

Her father made a noise, something like a hum to get her attention. She turned to face him, eyes widen as he clicks his pen, an umbrella balancing on his shoulder as he's writing.

"Very good Number Seven, you have shown ample potential." He said, shutting his journal before adjusting his eye monocle, looking into her for answers.

He must see something he doesn't like because he frowns, looks at her while she drowns in her own confusion. He doesn't say anything, doesn't tell her what's bothering him, he only frowns.

"You are dismissed," he said roughly, as he leans down examining the dirt circle that had risen and curved into her like spikes. 

She nods, walks inside the house, her hands shaking as her teeth chatter. Warmth hits her, slowly crawls up her body, and causes her to burn.

————————————————————

"What did you have for breakfast?" Her father questioned, leaning back in his chair, his hand holding a pen ready to write her response.

"Oatmeal," she said, confused at his question. She wraps her arms around her newly fresh clothes, as she sits back in the armchair. The fire burns brightly in his office, helping to dry her hair.

"I see," he tonelessly said, while writing down her answer. "And what is the last thing you remember doing?" 

"Training?" She said, more like a question, because she was both unsure if that's truly the last thing she remembers and if that is what her father calls it.

He writes down the answer and continues with the questions. He asks so many, that she starts to get a headache as her mouth drys more and more as she answers.

As he asks his last question he leans back in his chair, looking her over.

"Are you hearing voices?" He asked, strangely, as if he might be fascinated with her. 

She just nods, doesn't explain anything, because she doesn't know how to. He doesn't ask her to, he just writes something down and shuts his journal.

"You have no powers," he tilted his head and held his hands together as if he was in a business meeting. "But I know you have the capacity to gain them," his hands clench together, she hears a crackle from the fire.

"I've seen it with my own eyes, the upheaval of ground in the courtyard was all you."

"I didn't-" she starts but he cuts her off.

"I’m more than aware you didn’t personally," he stands, the chair makes ear-piercing squeak as it slides across the floor. He walks over to the fire, grabs the poker, and turns over a piece of wood.

"I have considerable reason to believe you may be suffering from dissociative identity disorder, and a completely new form of it at that,” He leans the poker against the wall, as he turns to her.

"It'd like to explore this theory more extensively if you don't mind," he says as if he's really giving a choice, but he isn't. It's nothing but an illusion, he'd do it anyway even if she said no.

It's nothing but a manipulation tactic that he has learned works quite well.

She nods as her father cast his judgment down upon her.


End file.
